Customer Reviews

A Theory of Justice

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I'm astonished at the tenor and number of negative reviews "A Theory of Justice" has garnered from the right. This is especially surprising because Rawls shares with American conservatives one fundamental principle: the inviolability of the individual.

A "Theory of Justice" is a technical work aimed at professional philosophers, political scientists, and constitutional law specialists. Nevertheless, the book is understandable by laymen, provided it is read as what it is, i.e. a technical work of moral philosophy and not as a political agenda. Rawls's simple and plain style also makes this book a relatively easy read.

I suspect that the rejection of Rawls by even the more thoughtful conservatives stems from a serious misunderstanding of utilitarianism, which Rawls savagely attacks from the start. Utilitarianism is the moral principle that the TOTAL welfare of a society is the highest value. In practice, the only measure of total welfare the government has is GDP, so that's what we maximize: GDP. This makes utilitarianism attractive to laissez-faire capitalist philosophies, and because Rawls attacks utilitarianism, both the left and the right imagine he is attacking markets, industry, and capitalism. The left have made him their angel, and so the right their demon.

Rawls makes no attack on capitalism, only on utilitarianism. He asserts the inviolability of the individual as society's primary moral principle and demonstrates that this is incompatible with utilitarianism. For example, under utilitarianism, it makes sense to take Bob's heart, give it to Stan, and to give his lungs to John. You've saved two lives by sacrificing one, so society is on the whole better off with two members (Stan and John) rather than just one (Bob). This is obviously wrong and that's why we want to jettison this (im)moral philosophy.

Another misconception is that Rawls does not accept inequality. This is false: Rawls accepts inequality provided that those at the bottom benefit from the inequality. For instance let's say John wants to become rich and so invents a pill that for ten dollars/person eliminates the risk of cancer in his hometown. John sells the pill and becomes rich and everyone is cured from cancer. John is better off than anyone else, but everyone else is better off than they would have been under an egalitarian society.

Yet another misconception is that Rawls wants to establish a Utopian plan for a perfect society. He does not. Rawls is not a revolutionary trying to reinvent society; he is a theoritical moral philosopher, a professional academic researcher, who seeks to isolate the basic principles that define what we mean by "Justice". This is a fair goal and a valid program of study. Everyone wants a just society; after all does anyone campaign for an unjust or unfair society? But we disagree as to what we mean by "Justice".

The real object of Rawls's work is to replace utilitarianism with a better concept of the social good, or of Justice. A Theory of Justice is his attempt at this.

Vincent Poirier, Tokyo

This is one of the most important books on social philosophy written in the last century. As the other mis-informed reviews illustrate, Rawls requires careful reading and a conviction to work through his arguments. Basically, Rawls tries to argue for a theory of Justice based on non-utilitarian principles. How can we have a Just Society that preserves individual rights and at the same time functions above the level of anarchy? Tilting too far one way results in a Communistic state that places the group above the individual. Tilting too far the other way results in a state that is a "war of all against all".

Rawls proposes that we arrive at a conception of Justice using minimal assumptions. He uses something called the "Veil of Ignorance" to derive his principles of Justice. This "Veil of Ignorance" assumes we would act in our own self-interest, but we don't know where in society we would end up. Given these two principles, people actint in their own self-interest but not knowing what place they might occupy in society, Rawls argues that we would come up with two principles of Justice; 1) each person has the most extensive basic liberties that are compatible for everyone having these liberties, and 2) social inequalities will be arranged so that they benefit everyone and such that we all have equal access to beneficial social positions.

(Some reviews here apparently feel that Rawls was trying to describe an historical situation with the Veil of Ignorance. I would suggest that they actually read Rawls.)

What Rawls is arguing is that taking a very minimal assumption about human nature (we rationally act in our own self interest) and assuming that no one knows his or her eventual social position, we will come up with these two principles of Justice (Justice as Fairness). A society is Just if it provides the most extensive set of liberties possible to everyone in the society and if it contains ways to balance social inequalities and provide equal access. Most people (even the Ann Rand folk) would agree with the first principle (equal rights), but likely have problems with the second.

Most of the people writing reviews, I believe, have not really read what Rawls has written or understood what they have read. If you want to disagree with Rawls then you must meet him with argument and reason, and not vituperative comment. I may not agree with everything in this book, but I must first understand Rawls' powerful arguments and reasoning before I can propose alternative ideas. Love him or hate him, Rawls cannot be ignored and neither can this book.

Surely, A Theory of Justice is among the most important and influential texts in contemporary philosophy. And it is, of course, the central text in contemporary political philosophy. Want just a few reasons to think this is an important text that you ought to read? Here you go: Rawls develops and defends a new theory of justice, he provides a new way to extend some of the basic ideas in the social contract tradition, his text was crucial in resurrecting Kantian moral theory, his work has helped to bring constructivist meta-ethical positions back into prominence, the book develops some new and influential criticisms of utilitarianism, and it includes an explication of the method of reflective equilibrium and demonstrates how it can be applied in moral theory, etc.

This is a long, intricate, and densely argued book, and there's no hope of summarizing even its main claims in this review. Consequently, I'll simply aim to give a very sketchy account of the structure of his main argument here.

Rawls's theory is a theory of justice as it applies to the basic institutions of a single society. He calls his theory "justice as fairness." It is not that he thinks justice is simply fairness, or that a just society is a fair one. Rather, people choose principles of justice in a position that is supposed to be fair; their choices in this fair position determine the correct principles of justice. The principles of justice determine the nature of a just society; they apply to the basic structure of society--to its fundamental institutions. They will be understood by people who accept them as principles telling them how their society should be structured with respect to how it provides people with their basic rights and liberties, how it determines people's opportunities in life, and how it structures the institutions in which people acquire wealth and income.

The fair position for choosing these principles is what Rawls calls "the original position." His argument has the following structure: he describes the original position, and then he argues that parties in the original position would choose a particular set of principles of justice. The principles chosen constitute the correct theory of justice.

The first part of the argument is a detailed account of the original position. Parties in the original position are placed behind a veil of ignorance, where they are stripped of certain types of knowledge. In particular, they lose all the knowledge of the contingent facts concerning their own standing in life and the details of life in their society. Furthermore, they lose knowledge of their particular talents, desires, psychological traits, skills, etc. Why prefer this as a position in which principles of justice are to be chosen? The main idea is that it allows us to see the people as coming to fair terms for social cooperation, for this is supposed to be a fair situation for selecting the principles. Parties behind the veil are unable to rig the principles of justice to benefit themselves rather than others; they aren't allowed to use their position or talents to strongarm people into selecting principles that aren't to those people's benefit; and they aren't allowed to craft the principles to suit their actual needs, aims, desires, etc. However, parties in the original position do possess the sort of general knowledge about human psychology, human societies, and the natural world that would be required to choose between principles of justice.

Now, importantly, placing individuals in the original position depends on a particular moral view; this is supposed to reflect our considered judgments about justice and fairness. It is a way of drawing out what we actually think about these things. This is not a historical argument: the original position isn't supposed to be a description of some situation people were once in. Nor is this an argument grounded in some account of human nature and psychology: the parties in the original position aren't supposed to reflect something of importance about human psychology. (One should see section 40 for an account of this as a Kantian conception of justice, though. Here Rawls may be resting his theory on an account of us as beings of a certain sort. But, again, this is a philosophical and moral account of persons; this isn't the sort of thing you're going to find out about by doing ordinary sociology, anthropology, or psychology.)

In the next part of his argument Rawls claims that parties in the original position would agree upon the following principles of justice. The first principle is that individuals are to possess greatest amount of basic rights and liberties compatible with similar rights and liberties for others. The relevant rights and liberties are the right to vote and to hold public office, freedom of thought, freedom of speech and assembly, the right to own property and to avoid unreasonable search and seizure, etc. The second principle is that there is to be fair equality of opportunity with respect to positions of authority and responsibility, and that inequalities in wealth and income are be for the benefit of all, and particularly for the benefit of the worst-off group. The first principle is to be satisfied before the second one, so rights and liberties cannot be sacrificed in the interest of securing more wealth or income for any or all people. And one should notice that these principles do not clearly imply anything about how the institutions in which people acquire wealth and income are to be ordered or regulated. This will depend on which set of institutions would actually meet the requirements set by the second principles, and this will depend on empirical facts about how the world works. Moreover, it should be pointed out that many ways of ordering and regulating these institutions will be ruled out by the first principle, irrespective of how well off they would make the worst-off group.

This, clearly, should be read by anyone interested in contemporary analytic philosophy, and it is an absolutely crucial text for people studying ethics or political philosophy.

Rawls significantly revised his book after its initial publication, clarifying points and answering criticisms, and he considers the Revised Edition to be the definitive version. But the Original Edition is what comes up in Amazon searches, with no indication that there even is a revised edition, so use the ISBN to do your search to find it:

0-674-00078-1

or

9780674000780

In the introduction, the publishers of the reprinted Original Edition said they wanted it to remain in print mainly for Rawls scholars, to trace his thought.

Rawls says in his introduction to the 1999 publication of the Revised Edition, "This revised text includes what I believe are significant improvements...(and is) superior to the original."

John Rawls' masterful "A Theory of Justice" doesn't need to be defended by me, but I honestly doubt whether many of the far-right Amazon reviewers who attack the book have actually read it. They certainly misunderstand or willfully misrepresent its arguments. Take Mr. Walt Byars of Tampa, for example, who dismisses Rawls as a "bad philosopher" and then writes: "Much of the veil of ignorance relates to getting the person in the original position to choose what is best for the average man." As anyone who has actually read "A Theory of Justice" knows, the original position rules out utilitarian results and generates principles of justice that protect the worst off members of society, not the average members. How someone could read the book yet get this fundamental point wrong is amazing (unbelievable, in fact). To paraphrase Amazon reviewer C.T. Dreyer (who has read and understood Rawls), "Just read the book!"

It seems as though an enormous number of the reviews here are from amateur philosophers who rate the book according to how closely they agree with its conclusions, and if the level of agreement is low, go on to give an argument (usually involving a shallow misreading of Rawls) instead of a review. I suggest not taking these into account too heavily. FWIW, I'm among those who thinks Nozick's response to Rawls is brutally on target -- but ToJ is nevertheless a subtle and important piece of political philosophy. If anything, the book is valuable precisely because in seeing why it goes wrong (which is hardly as simple as some of the other reviews make it sound) we get a clearer notion of what features an adequate account of justice would need to have.

Rather than accepting some glib dismissal, I suggest picking up the book and grappling with the arguments yourself. Rawls is not exactly exciting to read (as opposed to, say, Nozick) but this is in part because he is admirably rigorous and methodical, taking pains to distinguish opposed views (he considers several different versions of Utilitarianism, for example, rather than treating it as a monolithic theory) and outline precisely how and why they differ from his own. Whether or not you agree with his conclusions, ToJ is absolutely a prerequisite for almost any serious engagement with contemporary political philosophy, which takes place very much in the shadow of Rawls.

John Rawls is one of the great giants of political theory of the twentieth century. His builds on the liberal tradition of social contract theories and on the rational quest for universal imperatives that could provide a solid structure for a free and democratic society in a world divided by different world views and conception of the good. In my view, this places Rawls in the lockean and kantian tradition. It is a typical "right prior to good theory", that is premissed on the equal dignity and on rational and moral competence of individuals. It is with these traits that individuals are idealized and placed in an original position behind a veil of ignorance. In this situation, where they don't know what their real position in society will be, they chose the principles that will form a just society. These principles, concerning equal rights, access to positions in government and a concern for the improvement of those worst off even when inequality increases, are the principles of justice. Much has been said about the ideal character of the original position, the ideal character of its subjects, of the assumptions of equal concern and respect that lie behind this model and about the difference principle. The thing is that Rawl's theory of justice retains its appeal, because it is ultimately premissed in the equal dignity and freedom of individuals. It is interesting that this modern liberal understanding has a strong christian element that predates Locke himself. For instance, I remenber that one of the english levellers (Walwyn of Lilburne, I'm not sure now) a contemporary of Oliver Cromwell, has a writting in which he deffends that since there are so many different opinions in matters of religion, the power in the commonwealth should rest not so much in one given interpretation of christian ortodoxy, but on a sense of justice that derives from the consideration of all individuals as equal before God, worthy of equal concern and respect even when they disagree in matters of religion. In my opinion, only a theory of justice premissed in the equal dignity and freedom of every individual can provide a strong foundation for a free, open, fair and democratic society, based on the rule of law and on human rights.

I think everything I would say about this book has been said already by others-- I found it very intriguing. I'm a hard-line utilitarian, and Rawls obviously makes an interesting critique of utilitarian social organization, but I wasn't compelled to reject my views. This is a great book, but I personally prefer his Political Liberalism to this one.

A little note on Marx-- Rawls is definitely not a Marxist. Those who criticize him as such clearly don't know anything about Marx's work. Marx never actually says very much about what his communist state is going to look like, other than his belief that markets and politics will be abolished. Rawls doesn't believe in abolishing markets, and his discussion of redistribution of wealth would never be possible in a Marxist state.

I have a definite interest in political philosophy. I read John Rawls "A Theory of Justice" (ATOJ) shortly after reading Robert Nozick's "Anarchy, State, & Utopia" (AS&U). (My review of AS&U is also available here.) I read AS&U almost immediately after realizing its existence while I was looking for reading material about libertarian ideas. I read ATOJ because, while reading AS&U, I read a statement indicating that these two texts have been the primary catalysts of modern sociopolitical debate. Having now read both works, I can easily believe that. Also, I am, generally, in agreement with Nozick that a "night watchman" state is all that can be morally justified. I know this is a somewhat radical position in the context of today's political thinkers; therefore, I wanted to read something that presents different ideas. I chose ATOJ.

I am 37 years old. I am a software designer and programmer. I work in a very competitive commercial environment (for a company - as opposed to the government or academic environments). I have a wife and two active children with whom I gladly spend a great deal of time. I say these things to indicate that I am not in any field where my pursuit of my interest in the history of philosophy and, specifically, political philosophy is of any direct or immediate benefit and to indicate that I have relatively little time to study such things. The time I have available to read or analyze ANY work about political philosophy is very limited. However, having become very disillusioned by the two major political parties in the United States, my interest in political philosophy has been very strong over the past several years. I have learned that, if I wish to benefit from my reading to the degree that I desire, I must carefully choose what I read - I must study as efficiently as I can. I believe that I have chosen well in reading AS&U and ATOJ to gain a detailed introduction to modern (and, even, antique) political ideas. Since reading these two works, I have continued my study in many different directions, but these works are an excellent starting point. If you are similar to me in interest and responsibilities, I would highly recommend this combination of reading material as an efficient starting point.

John Rawls, in ATOJ, presents some very important and intriguing ideas. These ideas are presented well and in an organzization that is adequate to the author's purpose, with good summarization or key points. (My only criticism of AS&U in my review of it regarded the nature its organization, lack of summaries, and Nozick's tendency to digress into tangential discussions that, although interesting and important, seemed to reduce my ability to efficiently benefit from Nozick's main points.)

Rawls' presentation of the concept of the "original position" in support of his idea of "Justice as Fairness" is excellent and significant. However, I do not agree with the extrapolation of the ideas presented early in ATOJ into the design of the institutions (state) that Rawls proposes later, in Part Two, of the work.

Early in ATOJ, one might fall into the belief that John Rawls is a strong proponent of individual rights. Rawls writes "Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. Therefore in a just society the rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or the calculus of social interests." He also writes "The denial of the equal liberties can be defended only when it is essential to change the conditions of civilization so that in due course these liberties can be enjoyed."

On the surface, these statements from Rawls will likely bring agreement (even excitement) from promoters and defenders of individual liberty and responsibility. However, upon examining the departments of the state that Rawls proposes later in the work, one can not maintain that agreement (or excitement). I find this (bait and switch?) characteristic to be typical of most modern liberal ideas. If you have such a good idea, why is obfuscation required to promote it?

After this, my first, reading of ATOJ, I can still not understand how Rawls extrapolated the ideas presented early in ATOJ into the state design that includes as one of its major departments one with the sole purpose of redistributing wealth. It is one thing to accept that it is morally ideal for one to seek to help (or, even, serve) others. It is quite another to believe that it is morally justified for a state to confiscate even a portion of the fruits of the labor of an individual without their consent and, potentially, for purposes that individual would find immoral. I do not mean to imply that helping or serving others is not moral. It is just that I see that there is no justification for the state forcing individuals to participate in such things.

Consider what such a state design implies. A government/state consists only of human agents. "The denial of the equal liberties" mentioned in a previous paragraph and the forced redistribution of wealth included in Rawls' state design imply that human agents of the state should be the ones that make decisions that define the level of "equal liberties" and the degree of the redistribution of wealth. No matter how you color or try to justify this, it is elitism born of collectivism - socialism, pure and simple.

I find Rawls' concept of the desired state/government to be the antithesis of the concept of individual liberty and responsibility upon which the government of the United States of America was founded. Sadly, I believe that the governments of our nation and its constituent states are currently much closer to the socialist/elitist/welfare state that has come about (partly) as a result of the influence of Rawls than they are to the "night watchman" state of Nozick. I am not completely convinced (yet, anyway) that Nozick's "night watchman" state is the best one. However, I would rather our country (at least) reverse course to move further away from socialist/elitist/welfare state and closer to the "night watchman" state.

I found that I garnered the most benefit from the sections of ATOJ that discuss civil disobedience and related topics. These sections helped me consider important ideas that I had not before considered in so complete a fashion. I believe that I now understand fully when civil disobedience is philosophically justiable and when it is not. Thank you, Mr. Rawls, for this.

A Theory of Justice is surprisingly accessible, even to those of us without extensive training in philosophy. Rawls briefly examines two of the most influential Western liberal philosophers (Locke and Mill), and then proceeds to construct his own Theory which builds on Locke and Mill while solving for some of the deficiences in each.

As Rawls admitted, the gist of his Theory can be gleaned from the first part of the book, though the book reads easily enough that one should be able to get through the whole thing fairly quickly.

I highly recommend this book to those who think of philosophy as convoluted jargon written long ago by men in powdered wigs and robes, as well as to those who are unsure of the philosophical basis for much modern liberal political thought. A remarkably accessible and important development in liberal thought.